Monday, December 31, 2007

... and an awful, miserable, disastrous new year to others. You'll know who they are by now but, to spell it out, I'll quote Jackart's merry message.

Tacitus described the Britons (for 'tis an older description than "English") as a hard drinking people, yet he compares the liberty they once enjoyed to the oppression of Rome.

solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.*

Nothing has changed, and despite the exhortations, I urge you to go out and drink more than the one and a half glasses of wine that our New Labour masters deem acceptable. We are not soft, moderate wine-drinking southern Europeans who'd rather allow their lords to decide what is civilised; we are pugnacious northern Europeans schooled in individual liberty for two and a half millennia. Though our European masters may think that they're better than us, we know who's right. Most of us will drink far more than is prudent tonight. Why? Because it's fun, and we know it is! So stick two fingers in the air in the General Direction of that joyless fucker, Brown as he broods in his bunker with his health-fascist puritan myrmidons as they drink their festive glass of babycham, and shout

idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset**

Try and avoid throwing up, which is uncivilised, the only excuse for which is being 14 and still working out how much you can take, but revel the night away, safe in the knowledge that the scientific advice on safe drinking levels was plucked out of thin air, by some bloodless wimp who cannot hold his beer. A good piss-up once in a while does you no harm.

Indeed. Have a good one!

*They create a Desert and call it 'peace'**Because they didn't know better, they called it 'civilization,' when it was part of their slavery

Condolences to the Belgians, who shame us all by winning the annual Softie Award for cancelling new year.

My Mum begged me not to go to Edinburgh's new year celebrations in 2003, because the police thought terrorists would attack us. As it turned out, the entire plot was utter bullshit and I was attacked instead by a six-foot-four-tall Glaswegian whose deranged girlfriend mistakenly believed I was selling drugs.

So my message this new year must be, don't worry about crazy Islamists - they're highly unlikely to attack us on any given day.

Mental Glaswegians, however, will try to smash your face in on the slightest pretext, and should be shot on sight.

The Police Federation has offered what it calls an "olive branch" to the home secretary in the bitter row over pay.

The federation had called for Jacqui Smith to resign over her decision not to backdate a 2.5% pay rise for police in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

But in a letter, its chairman Jan Berry now says she believes Ms Smith was badly advised, although she urges her once again to reconsider her decision.

I wonder if this is anything to do with the fact that the police seem to be incapable or organising a demonstration because of a severe lack of knowledge of the law that they are supposed to uphold?

Police last night accused the government of attempting to ban 10,000 officers from marching through Westminster in a mass protest over their pay award. The demonstration would be the force's biggest since 1919....

The high-profile demonstration, intended to highlight the force's anger over its recent below-inflation, 1.9 per cent pay rise, is threatening to become a major political flashpoint in the new year. The police claim their preferred route for their march is set to be banned under archaic 'sessional orders', laws drawn up in the early 19th century to combat large-scale radical protests that threatened a disturbance of the peace.

The orders are renewed by Parliament each year and invoked by the Metropolitan Police if the force believes a protest will prevent MPs from going about their daily business. Critics of the orders claim they are a heavy-handed response designed to stifle peaceful protest.

As Timmy says, "hoist" and "petard" are the words that spring to mind.

I wonder how many of said demonstrating police have refused to impose such restrictions on others?

Indeed. You'll have to excuse me, I need a minute: I just cannot stop laughing...

David Cameron has given the strongest signal yet that the Conservatives would consider holding a post-ratification referendum on the controversial EU Reform Treaty.

Well, good for Dave! That is a relief!

Next week, Dave might consider possibly thinking about maybe looking at the options that could be contemplated around some issues of major political themes.

If he deems it necessary, he may even cogitate on the advisability of taking a particular action, if the consultations seem warrant it—and, of course, if the Ares is sucking nipples in the house of Gemini...

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialised civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”—Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and Executive Officer for Reform in the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations.

“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”—Paul Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, “Population, Resources, Environment” (W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1970, 323)

The Population Bomb (1968) is a book written by Paul R. Ehrlich. A best-selling work, it predicted disaster for humanity due to overpopulation and the "population explosion". The book predicted that "in the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death", that nothing can be done to avoid mass famine greater than any in the history, and radical action is needed to limit the overpopulation.

As you might be able to tell, Ehrlich has a talent for being wrong. But I digress...

Oh, no, wait; here he is again.

“Giving society cheap, abundant energy … would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”—Paul Ehrlich, “An Ecologist’s Perspective on Nuclear Power”, May/June 1978 issue of Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report.

Onwards...

“We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the same industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”—Michael Oppenheimer. Michael Oppenheimer, Princeton University. He joined the Princeton faculty after more than two decades with Environmental Defense, is a long-time participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), serving most recently as a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.

That, Michael, is called "pulling up the ladder behind you", I believe. Although I prefer an uglier name: murder.

“The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man) upon the rest of the natural world.”—John Shuttleworth, FoE manual writer.

“People are the cause of all the problems; we have too many of them; we need to get rid of some of them, and this (ban of DDT) is as good a way as any.”—Charles Wurster, Environmental Defense Fund.

In the period from 1934-1955 there were 1.5 million cases of malaria in Sri Lanka, resulting in 80,000 deaths. After the country invested in an extensive anti-mosquito program with DDT, there were only 17 cases reported in 1963. Thereafter the program was halted, and malaria in Sri Lanka rebounded to 600,000 cases in 1968 and the first quarter of 1969.

So well done on that score, Charles; many millions of humans are, indeed, not now living because of that decision. I would like to see you condemn your own family so casually...

Still, moving on...

"Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental."—Dave Forman, Earth First! and Sierra Club director (1995-1997)

"We have to get rid of that warm medieval period."—Jonathan Overpeck, a Professor at U of Arizona and IPCC Lead Author in an email to David Deming, a professor at U of Oklahoma.

Yeah, it's always been a bit inconvenient, eh? Still, that's one of the climate change alarmists' favourite tactics: if the science doesn't back you, just lie.

"No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits... climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."—Christine Stewart, Canadian Environment Minister, Calgary Herald 14 Dec, 1998.

The "science" is, of course, pretty much all phoney; that which isn't outright lies is either obfuscation or deeply unreliable. As I keep saying, wake up: we're being lied to.

The scenario is worse in case of girl child offenders. In Iran, where Sharia or the Islamic Law, rules, a women cannot be executed if she is a virgin and hence permits legal rape.

And again, from a talk by Lily Mazahery at Harvard last year, speaking here of the execution of 16-year-old Atefeh Rajabi for adultery:

The judge who presided over Atefeh's sham trial and sentenced her to death by public hanging is reported to have raped Atefeh himself before he personally placed the noose around her tiny neck. The so-called justification for such despicable act of savagery is the Sharia legal system, put in place by the Islamic Regime and championed by Mr. Khatemi. Under Sharia law, virgin girls are not allowed to be executed, for their purity might open up the doors of heaven to them. To avoid this, virgin girls, such as Atefeh, who are sentenced to death, are raped before execution to ensure their proper place in hell.

Of course, if she had, in fact, committed adultery then she would not be a virgin; if the judge raped her in order to ensure that she was not, then he must not have believed that she had had sex and therefore she could not be guilty.

If the judge raped her and knew her not to be a virgin, then he was, let's face it, just taking advantage of the fact that he had the power to get a nice, tight shag and he is an utter, utter cunt and should have his cock ripped off with crocodile shears.

Either way, and whatever the truth of the matter, Iran is a place run by twisted Islamist barbarians with all of the decency and honour of a fresh dog turd. In fact, any regime which punishes the raped rather than the rapist is utterly morally bankrupt; the entire place is run by turds, cunts, thieves and bastards of the very first water.

As readers will know, I do not subscribe to the anthropogenic global warming hoax; however, I do think that we should be trying to avoid having to burn oil and the main reason is so that we can let these awful regimes go bankrupt. Right now, we are propping them up through our need to the black stuff and we are al stained with the blood of their victims.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Where do they find them, eh? "They" being Comment Is Free and "them" being quite the stupidest people on the planet. The moron pictured to your left is a certain Chris Hallam who is, presumably, CiF's joke find of the year.

Look guys, a joke's a joke, but I think that letting the fucktard write an article is just going too far.

Yet, in reality, neither of these arguments is entirely correct. The simple truth is that the conditions of the smoking ban are not too prohibitive, but that they are nowhere near prohibitive enough. Instead of producing the dream of a land free of the scourge of secondhand smoke, it's now virtually impossible to enter many pubs and clubs without first pushing your way through an unhealthy congregation of smokers converging around the doorway.

Tough shit. Further, I notice that you have failed to complain about the car fumes that you have had to wade through to get to the pub in the first place; do you own a car, Chris? Because, if you do, I would love to wander over and—with a cry of "hypocrite!"—punch you in the face.

More pointedly, the ban has exposed a wealth of contradiction in public attitude. To pick just one example, while nobody seriously questions that anyone using a mobile phone while at the wheel at the car should face the stiffest penalties, people are less concerned about smoking behind the wheel.

I really don't think that they are comparable, Chris, old chap. Why? Quiet apart from the concentration required to continue a conversation which dangerously distracts a driver from the events on the road, a mobile in one's hand is a serious impediment to the operation of the vehicle—it is actually quite difficult to hold a steering wheel, change gear and hold a mobile up to your ear simultaneously.

By contrast, a hardened cigarette addict smokes instinctively—the act requires no concentration—and you can hold a cigarette between your fingers whilst simultaneously keeping a grip on the wheel and changing gear.

Will that do for starters? Oh, and go fuck yourself for good measure.

And what about children? If the government is sincere about protecting those most vulnerable from second hand smoke, then why isn't a ban on smoking in all households containing children, at least being considered?

The children! Oh, won't somebody think of the chiiiiiiiilllldrrrreeeeeeenn? Perhaps you'd like to see smoking in a private home on a par with child abuse? Smoking around your kids is akin to beating them with a steel bar, or keeping them chained in a bath and starving them or just plain fucking them?

I think that you are getting a little over-ambitious, sunshine; the social services can't cope with their workload as it is, without them having to do the rounds to every family that has a smoker in it. This is especially true since, as far as I am aware, no evidence has actually been published about the harmful effects of secondary smoke.

But the upshot is that you think that you know how to raise children better than everybody else, don't you, Chris? I look forward to your next article, seriously advocating that all children be removed from their parents and put in Polly's State Podding HutchesTM.

You, sir, are an illiberal, authoritarian wanker of the most dangerous kind.

Where do they manage to get half-wits like this from? He calls himself a "freelance writer and researcher", although a Google on his name fails to turn up a single example of anything he has written before. He does seem to advise the Joseph Rowntree Trust, however. Which probably explains a lot.

Indeed. And you can expect those Toynbee State Podding HutchesTM to be coming along any day now—all your kids are belong to us.

So, we have, I think, adequately demonstrated the totalitarian evil of the man, but we must look to the last paragraph of Chris Hallam's so-called article in order to demonstrate his near-unbelievable ignorance and stupidity.

Ultimately, the ban enacted on July 1 should not be the end of the legislative process but the beginning. The months and years to come should witness a wealth of legislation enacted by the government leading towards one ultimate goal: the abolition of smoking, whether public or private, throughout the land, forever.

Godwin's Law-esque though it may be of me to point it out, but Hitler would have been proud of you, boy; he was none too keen on the evil weed either. But this is just bog-standard, I-know-better-than-you socialist evil; I'll let Bishop Hill take over once more to point out the stupidity.

You would have thought that after the chaos of the war on drugs and prohibition in the 1930s people would have learned that banning things has unintended and very unpleasant consequences. Mr Hallam obviously feels that tobacco smuggling gangs having gunfights on every street corner is a reasonable price to pay so he doesn't have to sully his nostrils with a whiff of tobacco smoke. Some people just never learn.

Quite. Ladies and gentlemen: let me introduce, hopefully for the last time, Chris Hallam—scum of the earth. Not only ignorant of history and thick as fuck, but also a nasty little dictator too.

Now, I'm off to find out where he lives, so that I can smoke an entire pack of my beloved Marlboro Reds and blow the smoke through the tedious little bastard's letterbox...

... then they will do it: it's that simple. And so we get, via The Englishman, a wonderful juxtaposition of stories in the papers this morning. First up, The Scotsman.

SEX education lessons should be given to schoolchildren as young as five as part of a bid to combat soaring levels of teenage pregnancy and sexual disease, Scotland's most senior public health doctor said last night.

One of my friends is a teacher in the upper ends of a primary school, and she told me something that made me repeatedly bang my head off the table in frustration and frenziedly clench and unclench my fists in impotent rage. Now, as we all know, for bookdrunk has spelt it out numerous times (and god knows it is obvious enough), that if you wish to curb STDs and unwanted teenage pregnancies, then you need to educate the kiddies.

The government and the Scottish Executive have made much of their improved sex education, and obviously they are to be lauded for these efforts. Unfortunately, some of it is completely pointless, as my friend explained.

She is not allowed to teach her kids about contraception.

Yes, you did read that right. She is allowed to teach them about sex, but not contraception. She can teach them about how babies are made, but not how you can have sex without getting pregnant. She can teach them about Sexually Transmitted Diseases, but not how they might protect against them. She is supposed to get them to talk to their parents; she can, indeed, direct them to their parents, but she, herself, is not allowed to tell them about contraception.

Sex education initiatives are failing to control the spiralling teenage pregnancy crisis, ministers have admitted for the first time.

Actually, as Timmy points out, the rate of teen pregnancy is actually down by 11.4% so it is hardly a "spiralling" crisis.

However, there are an undesirable—undesirable if, like me, you think that children attempting to raise children is a bad thing—number of teenage pregnacies occurring but the reason is really quite simple: the government pays women to have children.

What's the government doing to discourage teenagers from having babies? Well, setting up targets and spending £100 millions a year on quango's and advertising no doubt.

England Expects has been to one of the finest and most comprehensive exhibitions of British art ever assembled—and it's in Ghent.

The purpose of the exhibition is to show how the exceptionalism/individualism in the English character that created the industrial revolution had an echo in the art produced there. As Hoozee puts is his fine introduction to the lavish catalogue,

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Voltaire was already full of praise for the climate of freedom he encountered in England. With respect to religion, he wrote in 1726 that

"England is properly the country of sectarists... An Englishman, as one to whom Liberty is natural may go to heaven his own way".

Until well into the nineteenth century, artists and critics were fascinated by the specific circumstances under which art in Great Britain was able to thrive. One of these, Théophile Thoré wrote in 1863,

“Self-Government is complete in English Art, just as it is in all the institutions and all the customs of this proud people, where individuality asserts itself. It is this that lacking in French artists, who almost always obey some higher authority, tradition or prejudice”.

He claims, with some justification that in Britain art followed a distinctive path from that on the Continent, charmingly he describes it as ‘marginal’, which has as its mainstay the empirical experience of reality and otherwise wild flights of fancy and the visionary.

What would Voltaire make of us now?—a poor, cowed people who barely understand the concept of freedom.

Would Thoré see now a "proud people" or a sheep-like race of uneducated, ignorant imbeciles, raped by the state and unaware of what "Self-Government" might even mean, let alone how they might strive to maintain or regain it?

How the mighty are fallen.

I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear:"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"Nothing beside remains: round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Such is Britain and its people; a ruined shell of something that was once great, awesome and terrible. The spark of individuality has been stamped out, and increasingly any joy in life is going the same way, the spirit of our people destroyed by successive homogenising governments who believe that they know best how people might live.

Fuck them all: I hope that the politicians and civil servants and QUANGOcrats might one day look down from their ivory towers and, the scales fallen from their eyes, see and understand what they have done. At that point, had they any honour or decency, they would take any sharp implement and use it upon themselves, a precaution against the ensuing self-defenestration failing to kill them.

But the people must also take some of the blame—when will we tear our eyes away from Big Strictly Come X Factor Me Out Of Here, Brother and let the anger course through our veins? When our history is once again taught in schools, perhaps, and the British realise what has been taken from them, and what we have exchanged for our temporary security.

DRINKS firms will no longer be able to market products as “slammers” or “shooters” from midnight on New Year’s Eve under a new code of conduct designed to curb high-speed “down in one” drinking.

The code, drawn up by the Portman Group, which represents drinks makers, also bans the use of alcohol logos on children’s replica sports kit, but its main target is fast drinking. Even ads that show a drinker’s head tipped back too far as they put the glass to their lips will be covered.

Seriously, what is the fucking point of this? Does anyone really think that this is going to make the slightest difference to drinking habits?

One might argue that banning such advertising is harmless but we all know what comes next: the banning of these products entirely. Now, I am generally a real ale man, but every now and then I do like a shot—generally a double vodka on the rocks with a twist of fresh lime, as it happens—and I object to the idea that someone might try to ban me from slamming down a swifty.

But what is most worrying is that this is a continuing extension of the idea that the citizens of Great Britain are simply incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions. Apparently people are unable to resist advertising. Apparently people are getting drunk when they didn't mean to. Apparently people are unable to take any kind of responsibility for their own actions.

As this blog has long argued, the more that you isolate people from the consequences of their actions, the more unlikely they will be to consider the consequences in the first place. In this way, the Welfare State has already infantilised several generations of citizens.

"As a result, Britain tops the league table of teenage mothers in western Europe, despite also having a record number of school-age abortions.

This comes despite the Government investing more than £150 million in an attempt to stem the tide of conceptions - and pledging to cut teenage pregnancy rates by half by the end of this decade."

Maybe it's because the point is being completely missed and our policy makers couldn't hit an obese cow's arse with an oversize banjo. The point being missed is that teenage mothers are not quite as stupid as the government is, as well as the fact that there is no evidence behind the government's policy.

I have heard of numerous cases where young teenage mothers have openly admitted that they deliberately achieved pregnant status because of the financial benefits it brings, financial benefits in the form of housing and income support et al. If individuals and families were responsible for their actions, rather than the state bailing them out whenever they messed up, then it may encourage a bit of personal responsibility and a better culture.

The disincentivising of teenage pregnancy by removing the state funded incentives would do more to help this sorry situation that anything else. At the same time improving the general education of our population in simple things such as numeracy and literacy would help the poorer in society realise that there are other ways out of poverty, other than living on state handouts. It is a great same that the fucktards in government could not realise this simple fact, sometimes helping someone less is actually in their long term interests.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

In a move reminiscent of storylines developed during the second world war, the UN is joining forces with Marvel Comics, creators of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, to create a comic book showing the international body working with superheroes to solve bloody conflicts and rid the world of disease.

The comic, initially to be distributed free to 1m US schoolchildren, will be set in a war-torn fictional country and feature superheroes such as Spider-Man working with UN agencies such as Unicef and the “blue hats”, the UN peacekeepers.

Yeah? Given that children in trouble spots around the world seem to be more used to seeing UN staff's purple helmets than their blue ones, what will it be called—Super-Pederast? Pimp-man? The Mighty Kiddie-Fucker? Captain Child-Rape? Or perhaps The Incredible You-Can-Have-Your-Food-When-You've-Sucked-My-Cock?

Still, it'll be free so I imagine that the recipients of this filthy propaganda will have no compunction about tossing this rag straight into the round file.

Now, go and visit EU Referendum for some more excoriating swearing-free bile; after all, you wouldn't want to miss Helen's take on the mighty Captain Euro now, would you? But, to whet your appetite, here's a snifter...

In other words, the evil enemy of the wondrous Captain Euro and his superlative team that consists of people who are Gaia enthusiasts, fabulous gymnasts and people who get their scientific ideas from science fiction is—ta-dah—a businessman, who is clearly crooked, as all businessmen are.

The man who creates employment, provides financial services and adds to the wealth of wherever he happens to be (incidentally, what is wrong with international business which breaks down national barriers?) is evil, evil, evil. The goodies are people who prat around as parasites on the body politic, financed by the taxpayer.

The rest is just as good. Although, of course, Helen does miss the point that the evil Dr D Vider—who opposes the very Aryan Captain Euro—also looks extremely Jewish: just look at that nose. Not that the EU would ever be anti-Semitic in any way, of course...

When the fat, greedy, corrupt turds finally retake their seats in the House of Commons, in the new year, they will be scrutinising the text of the Lisbon Treaty EU Constitution.

At this point, I would like to remind you all that neither our elected nor non-elected representatives have any power to alter one sentence, one word or one iota of this Treaty. In other words, its scrutiny is a complete waste of Parliamentary time because, even if either MPs or Lords do not like a particular clause, there is absolutely less than fuck all that they can do about it.

Some of the most recent polls show that up to 40 per cent of the British people say that they would now vote to leave the European Union altogether; that some 80 per cent would vote to leave the European Union if that meant regaining control of our borders; and that 74 per cent favour leaving or forging a looser relationship with Brussels—in effect, continuing in collaboration and free trade with our friends in the EU while departing from the political and bureaucratic constraints of the treaties of Rome. Yet, so far as I know, only one of the 19 proposed Members of your Lordships' Select Committee favours the latter option—returning to free trade while leaving the treaties—and not one publicly espouses either of the other options. Of course I do not pretend to know what every proposed Member feels about the EU, but from what they have said in your Lordships' House it looks as though no fewer than 10 are strongly in favour of the project of European union, and I am afraid that that includes the chairman, who is held in such personal affection by all your Lordships, including me, if he does not mind.

Furthermore—this is an even sorer subject—it looks as though perhaps five Members of the proposed committee receive EU pensions. I refer your Lordships to our debate on 19 July, when I suggested that such pensions should be declared in our debates because they can be forfeited if the holder fails to uphold the interests of the European Union. Whatever one feels about that, I would have thought it particularly difficult for an EU pensioner to support a report to your Lordships' House that might lead to the British people rejecting the proposed new treaty.

That raises a painful question. If Australians, Indians, Canadians, and even Americans can recognise the Anglosphere as a new factor in world politics, why is it something from which the Brits themselves shy?

It’s that Brits themselves don’t shy from dealing with the Anglosphere. As the very article itself points out, what creates the thing itself is that we all engage with it. However, the political classes are hesitant to even admit that it exists. There’s been a 50 year "campaign" (not the right word, I don’t mean to imply that everyone involved is consciously working towards this aim, rather that it’s a general assumption) to detach the UK from that Anglosphere, from those cultural links, and attatch the country to Europe.

I would wish that all of these bastards rot in hell, but that would require us to wait until they die: let's hang 'em for treason and have done with it.

In reporting the alleged rape of a young woman at the Manchester footballers' party, the Guardian described how young female shop assistants were "harvested"—the prettiest young women approached with an invite—to attend the event. The chosen girls were not paid to be present, but there was an implicit expectation that they would "entertain" the footballers in return for the hospitality they received and the access they obtained to celebrity culture.

So, despite the "implicit expectation that they would "entertain" the footballers", the girls went along with it anyway. In fact, one could say that they were happy to exchange the "hospitality they received and the access they obtained to celebrity culture" in return for sex with multiple partners.

If, as Zoe implies, they knew that this was the deal and yet still went along with it, what is the problem precisely?

But I'm not going to fisk it any further because this neatly illustrates the whole central implication of Zoe's article: that women are too stupid to understand the quid pro quo or too weak-willed to say "no" when push comes to fuck.

Liz Goodwin is Britain’s recycler-in-chief, the woman who, as head of WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme), spends £80 million of taxpayers’ money a year on getting us to waste less.

£80 million fucking quid? £80 million of our fucking money? As I have pointed out before, it takes someone on the median wage (£22,326) 44.7 years to earn a million pounds: this patronising fucking bitch is spending 3,576 Median Wage Years (my new unit of cost) every fucking year.

But forget any image you may have of an activist at the barricades: her politics are based on the fundamentals of good housekeeping that she inherited from her mother. She is mild, old-fashioned and somehow very English.

Since when was it "very English" to spend £80 million stolen from other people in order to tell those same people what to do? Well, I suppose that it has come about in the last century, along with the fucking socialists. Fuck off, Liz Goodwin, you thief of money and oxygen.

While most of our homes are now glutted by an excess of paper, bottles and - most of all – food, the house near Oxford is spic and span.

Um... Do you mean that? Or do you mean "spick and span"? Because I am pretty sure that you don't mean "spic" which is, after all, "is a highly offensive ethnic slur used in the United States and occasionally in the United Kingdom for a person from Latin America or of Latino/Hispanic descent, sometimes including Spanish and Brazilian persons." Don't these people have editors?

One in three bags of shopping ends up in landfill, she says, £8 billion worth of it each year, up to £400 a household. “If you think about all the energy that’s gone into producing that food, all the farming, the storage, the distribution, the preparation and then, if it’s wasted, it then goes into landfill and produces methane . . . I think that weekly food waste collection has a big part to play.”

With pilot schemes already going well, within two to three years she is determined to see pails of rotting food routinely collected along with the rubbish, then processed at local plants to generate electricity. She foresees a day when every town will have its own anaerobic digester.

Well, the thing is that food that goes into landfill goes through anaerobic decay to produce that methane. Which is then collected and used to generate energy. The proposal is that we should all have rotting food in our houses, waiting for the weekly collection, have a new and discrete collection system (with all of the associated emissions) and new plants, one in every town, where the food wastes can go through anaerobic decay so that the methane can be collected and used to generate energy.

That is, that we’re going to do what we already do, just in a new and vastly expensive manner, a method with higher, not lower, emissions.

So, it's a completely stupid thing to do. But, after listing a number of common sense but utterly fatuous pieces of advice—that have, remember, cost us £80 million—Liz lets drop some more words of wisdom.

But compel them to get going on these plans? No. People, especially here in Britain, don’t like to to be told what to do, she says.

That, of course, hasn't stopped Ms Goodwin from spending £80 million a year on effectively doing just that.

No, that is too restrained. They are a collection of duplicitous cunts; reneging cunts; lying cunts; and utter fucking cunt-slime of the most dishonest kind imaginable.

And they are cunts who hate doctors. At every stage of a doctors career, New Labour has introduced barriers and obstacles to fuck them over.

Fresh A-level students now have to sit a 'clinical aptitude test' which was forcibly implemented to select candidates, despite the fact it never worked.

The syllabus of a medical degree has lost the core subjects of anatomy, physiology and pathology, to be replaced by the touchy-feely bollocks approaches of 'communication', so that doctors can now empathetically tell relatives that their loved-ones have died due to the fact that they fucked up the surgery / internal medicine / disease management........"

Read on for more of this excellent summary at Dr Rant, I can't help agreeing with him but then again I can see through the government's propaganda campaign against GPs, unfortunately not everyone can. I cannot stand the way in which the agents of the state behave, the way that their vindictive cohorts bully and force, rather than listening and negotiating.

I am not pleading for sympathy or tears, I would just like people to realise that this reform is going to wreck a perfectly good primary care system. The more the government tries to control primary care in its totalitarian manner, the worse things will get. The new GP contract has actually worsened the inequality of access to primary care as the stupid target based payment systems GPs working in poorer areas even more than before.

The current reform agenda is resulting in Fisher Price Walk in Centre nurses being let loose to diagnose and treat after dumbed down four week courses. The Darzi review has not yet been completed or consulted, but strangely his ideas are already being ordered upon us at a PCT level; polyclinics will leave more surgery being done without adequate medical backup in place. An enormous amount of money is being spent to produce a cheap Third world style service, and to me this is incredibly sad.

In the IPCC case, there was an active truncation of “inconvenient” data which had the effect of concealing a mismatch from the reader. Worse, the matter was clearly and explicitly brought to IPCC’s attention and they refused to address the concealing.

In Pierrehumbert’s words, there was no “legitimate reason” for what IPCC did, but a “very good illegitimate reason”. It’s gratifying that Pierrehumbert and realclimate are lending their authority to the condemnation of such practices.

Climate Audit is written by Steve McIntyre who, with environmental economist Ross McKitrick, comprehensively annihilated one of the IPCC's main planks: the Mann "hockey-stick graph".

McIntyre was also responsible for NASA's recent... ahem... correction of their temperature figures which showed that it was, in fact, the 1930s that was the warmest decade of the last century and not, as had been promulgated by the AGW liars, the 1990s (and 1934 the warmest year and not 1998).

One of the counter-"arguments" that climate change alarmists like to wheel out, when one points to any long list of scientists who refute the AGW catastrophe theory, is that they are not real scientists or, failing that, that they are not proper climate scientists.

There were 380 contributors to the report [PDF of contributors]. A thorough and exhaustive analysis of the backgrounds of these experts (or were they?) was too ambitious (it's Christmas, and we have wine to drink, and mince pies to eat, too). So, we focused on the contributors who operate in the UK. Of the 51 UK contributors to the report, there were 5 economists, 3 epidemiologists, 5 who were either zoologists, entomologists, or biologists. 5 worked in civil engineering or risk management / insurance. 7 had specialisms in physical geography (we gave the benefit of the doubt to some academics whose profiles weren't clear about whether they are physical or human geographers). And just 10 have specialisms in geophysics, climate science or modelling, or hydrology. But there were 15 who could only be described as social scientists. If we take the view that economics is a social science, that makes 20 social scientists.

Even those who might be properly classified as climate scientists were not exactly all that they might seem; in other words, they were mostly research associates and many were not even in proper climate science. Could this be right? Climate Resistance decided to check the US contributors...

Of the 70 US contributors, there were 7 economists, 13 social scientists, 3 epidemiologists, 10 biologists/ecologists, 5 engineers, 2 modellers/statisticians, 1 full-time activist (and 1 part time), 5 were in public health and policy, and 4 were unknowns. 17 worked in earth/atmospheric sciences. Again, we gave the benefit of the doubt to geographers where it wasn't clear whether their specialism was physical, or human geography.

And yet Andrew Dessler—whom the post is fisking—has yet more arguments up his sleeve, and they are slapped down equally quickly.

In a follow-up post, Dessler has set about 'Busting the 'consensus busters'' by ridiculing the qualifications of Inhofe's 400 experts, starting with a certain Thomas Ring. In the comments section he justifies this approach:

I agree it would be quicker to simply note the qualified skeptics on the list (there are probably a few dozen), but, from a rhetorical point of view, I think pointing out these immensely unqualified members of the list is more effective.

Well, we can all play that game... Included as contributors to WGII are Patricia Craig, Judith Cranage, Susan Mann, and Christopher Pfeiffer, all from Pennsylvania State University. It's not that these people aren't experts in their field - they probably are. Our problem with their inclusion on the list of Contributors to the IPCC WGII Fourth Assessment report is that their jobs are (in order) website-designer, administrative assistant (x2), and network administrator.

Also on the list is Peter Neofotis who appears to be a 2003 graduate of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology from Columbia. Are there many experts in anything who graduated in 2003?

Well, quite. And these people have been included on the list of a so-called scientific report issued by the IPCC as contributors to the report. Had Climate Resistance not decided to look them up—and do read the whole thing for yet more exciting revelations—you might have thought that they were scientific experts and marvelled at the huge number of acclaimed climate science experts who had contributed.

Can anyone honestly say that this was not a dishonest action by the IPCC, that this was not deliberately intended to mislead readers and to give a false impression of the capabilities of those who had composed the report?

The IPCC are liars and as the whole anthropogenic climate change crap unravels—even on the Left—they cling ever more desperately to their outdated theories by propagating yet more obfuscations, half-truths and outright lies.

Wake up, people!—we are being lied to, and it is so that the political establishment can make complete slaves of us all.

... of the government constantly issuing threats through endless "high-profile"—for which read "massively expensive"—advertising campaigns. It is the kind of bullying, thuggish behaviour that is so beloved of totalitarian states.

And why do such states indulge in these massive wastes of their citizens' money?

Because in totalitarian states, the people do not want to comply voluntarily so they must be threatened and coerced into obeying. NuLabour's endless hectoring adverts are deployed for precisely the same reason: people do not see the need for the current laws and do not wish to obey them.

In other words, despite winning at the ballot box a little while ago, the government has lost the consent, and understanding, of the people for its legislative programme; hence all of the bullying and threats.

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne is to celebrate the first wave of the ID card rollout next year with a scary ad campaign threatening employers of illegal immigrants with fines of £10,000 per offence and up to two years in prison.

You see? The only way in which this bunch of fucking clowns can make anyone adhere to the myriad laws that it has enacted is through threats and coercion. And the subject itself is more than suspect anyway, as Chris Strange points out.

It looks like Labour's "British jobs for British workers" programme (now where have I heard that slogan before? Ah yes, its one from the BNP) is going to become reason de jour for the ID cards as well. Government officials wondering around demanding that foreign looking people produce work permits, could make their authoritarian tendencies any more obvious?

Quite so. As the fuckheaded monocular cunt knows very well, he cannot stop EU citizens coming here to work anyway, so what we are really talking about is the restriction of work for those outside of the EU so that jobs that British people don't want to do can be left open... Why?

Not that this is a problem that even needs a solution. If somebody wants to come to this country and work where exactly is the problem? Your average polish worker will have done far more actual good through their work than the people that comprise our political elites. As for Byrne? Perhaps we should introduce him to the historical wonders of the people that he seeks to restrict, such as the Romanians. By slowly impaling him and then leaving the dying corpse as a message that we are not the government's property to be tagged, and numbered, and catalogued for their convenience. The state is our servant not our master.

If only that were so. Alas, the culture of this country has become such that most of the morons who live here have accepted the state's shilling and are now little more than sheep, fed on a diet of celebritards and "reality" wank-shows, who barely comprehend—and are even less interested in—the loss of their freedoms.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Do you wonder how you might be able to use Facebook and other social networks in a political context?

Are you interested in developing applications?

When your internet connection fails do you have a panic attack?

MessageSpace://Creative are the leaders in modern new media design with a specialism in politics. We want to meet more like-minded people who want to explore the relationship between technology and politics.

From mailing lists to application development we think a meetup will help us all to get to know who is interested in this growing area of modern politics.

In true political tradition we will hold the initial meetup at the local pub, but we will have a meeting room available for more serious discussions around projects.

So, if you want to come and have drinks and chat informally about how Facebook is shaping the political arena or if you want to sit down and seriously talk about a project come along to the MS://C PoliGeek Meetup.

In usual political fashion some bottles of wine will be provided by MS://C and we will have a meeting room available.Please RSVP via Facebook—click here.

Come along: if you are deeply lucky and suitably grateful, your humble Devil will be happy to meet you...

A continual theme of this blog is that of slavery and how we poor toilers are slaves to those who remove our money by force,i.e. politicians. Tom Paine takes this a step further.

On my iPod I was listening to Copland's "Lincoln Portrait", which includes a narration featuring some of President Lincoln's own words. One passage struck me as I enjoyed the Chinese art I had gone to see.

It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, 'You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."—October 15, 1858 Debate at Alton

Many people in Britain are living by that same principle today. Do the able but unemployed or "economically inactive" on benefits not say "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it". How do they differ, precisely, from tyrants or slave-owners? For five months of the calendar year until "Tax Freedom Day", are we not their slaves, forced to work without pay to support them?...

How can kind intentions and a desire for social security have led to the majority of us living half our working lives as slaves to idlers? I exempt from all criticism those who are between jobs and seeking work; those who are genuinely disabled and unable to work. My concern is for those (and they know who they are) whose "bad backs," "depression" or whose selfish desires to have more children than they can afford lead them to live their lives in idleness at the expense of their fellows. They are slave masters and should be despised as such.

Tom is quite right, and you should read the whole post. And so, we can go into the new year, looking forward to the 4th of June—or whenever Tax Freedom Day is this fucking year—when we stop working as vassals of those whom we are forced to support through our taxes.

If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating more government action or less.

It is very rarely that they actually mean less government action, let's face it. The vast majority of laws make us less free, and governments can do little other than enact laws and thus politicians tend to remove liberty, not enhance it.

A seven-year-old girl has died in a head-on crash as she drove along a country road on a quad bike she had been given for Christmas.

Fingrith Hall Lane in Essex where 7-year-old Elizabeth Cooke was killed while riding a quad bikeThe road was dark when the collision happened

Elizabeth Cooke and her 10-year-old brother Jack were following their father's car in the dark along an unlit lane in the village of Blackmore, Essex, last night.

The little blonde girl was killed in a collision with a Range Rover travelling in the opposite direction at 7pm.

The tragedy happened quarter of a mile away from the home of her parents, Gary and Claire Cooke, who live at Bluebell Farm and run a chicken farm.

A friend of the family, who did not want to be named, said the excited children were taking their quad bikes, which they got as presents, out for a ride on Fingrith Hall Lane, a narrow road flanked with hedgerows and fields.

Yes, indeed, extremely tragic but what the fuck were the parents thinking? As the report points out...

Authorities said it was illegal for children to drive any vehicle on a public highway.

The Quadzilla Pro-Shark quad bike, the model believed to be being driven by the seven-year-old, is designed for use by children in fields.

The bikes are not legal on public roads unless modified and driven by someone over 16 wearing a crash helmet who is appropriately insured.

Does that quad bike even have proper lights? No, I can't see any. What the fuck were they thinking? I have to say, I am with The Longrider on this one.

So, quite apart from any feelings I might have about the suitability of buying motor vehicles as presents for minors, we have an illegal vehicle being driven on a public highway without insurance. Bad enough, but at the controls is an unqualified, under-age driver. I’m sorry, but what part of this scenario is not rampant stupidity?

“It’s such a tragedy, it’s absolutely awful especially at Christmas time. I don’t know how they will cope.”

Yes, well, without wishing to sound harsh or anything, it’s because they bought entirely unsuitable presents for their children and then allowed them to drive illegally on the roads that this tragedy happened at this time of the year. There is no one to blame here but the parents.

Quite. What realy enrages me is that the poor lass who was driving the Land Rover is the one who has been arrested and, after a breath test, bailed. She was, apparently, arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving: in that case, why were the parents of the girl not arrested? They were clearly in breach of highway laws, and it is they who should be prosecuted if anyone is to be. In fact, were I the 28 year old who hit the girl, I would be highly tempted to sue the girls' parents for damages.

It is a tragic accident but, unlike many accidents, it could have been avoided had the parents not been completely fucking stupid and had they not broken the law.

This from "Bottler" Brown, a man who never ran for election as leader of this country and who signed the Lisbon Treaty in clear defiance of the wishes of the British people and who broke his manifesto promise to hold a referendum on the said Treaty.

What the fucking hell does Brown know about democracy? Although, of course, on the "cowards" charge, Brown speaks from a position of authority: after all, it takes one to know one...

I note that James is on a brief hiatus and as such I thought that I'd leap in with one of my rare posts—only my second, in fact—in order to fill the gap.

I would like to say a few words about ManHunt 2, a computer game that is causing some controversy, as it essentially involves the gamer playing the part of a character who hunts down assorted people and kills them in inventive ways.

British censors have won the right to fight the UK release of video game Manhunt 2 in the High Court.

A judge accepted the British Board of Film Classification's argument that the game had been approved for release on a misinterpretation of the law.

The game was banned in June but the Video Appeals Committee said the game could be classified and released.

The BBFC said that the VAC had been guilty of "a very serious misdirection of law" on the question of harm.

The judge said: "I have taken into account the high public interest in the possibility of harm to children."

Mr Justice Wyn Williams ruled the Board had an arguable case that should go to a full hearing.

Both sides agreed that the game was not suitable for children, but the BBFC argued that if given a certificate for release, it could still end up in the hands of minors.

The first point is, if these media releases—be it video games or films—are going to "end up in the hands of minors" anyway, then what point is there is giving them a classification in the first place?

And how will they end up in the hands of minors? Either through shops selling them to minors—in which case the shops are breaking the law and they should be prosecuted at every opportunity—or the parents are going to buy the game for their children.

In this second scenario, the parents have made a deliberate decision to flout the law and the warnings that come with the classification. Whatever the reason, we have to accept that parents have ultimate legal rights over their children; their wishes should trump both the classification board and the government. To deny that is to accept that the parents do not own their children and are not responsible for them: the state is, and the state should have preference over the parents as to what is suitable for the children. And that is an utterly unacceptable scenario—unless, of course, you are someone like Polly Toynbee, for whom such a situation would be the first step on the road to socialist Utopia.

The final thing to consider is whether or not violent computer games are responsible for violent behaviour. And the answer is that it is unlikely and, assuming that it follows the same projection as porn, we can actually say how unlikely it is. Or, rather, Strange Stuff can.

Within Japan itself, the dramatic increase in available pornography and sexually explicit materials is apparent to even a casual observer. This is concomitant with a general liberalization of restrictions on other sexual outlets as well. Also readily apparent from the information presented is that, over this period of change, sex crimes in every category, from rape to public indecency, sexual offenses from both ends of the criminal spectrum, significantly decreased in incidence.

Most significantly, despite the wide increase in availability of pornography to children, not only was there a decrease in sex crimes with juveniles as victims but the number of juvenile offenders also decreased significantly.

In short, in the case of porn, easy availability leads to a decrease in sexual attacks because, fundamentally, porn acts as a substitute for the act itself. As far as we can tell, violent computer games act in much the same way: they allow people to play out a fantasy and they are less likely to ape the acts that they see portrayed.

Therefore, whilst various campaigners may hail this court challenge to Manhunt 2 as a triumph for decency and common sense it is, in fact, anything but. But these special interest groups don't like to get in the way of a good moralising, because that is why they exist.

However, make no mistake: if this game's release is banned, the subtext here is that the state knows better than you how you should raise your children. And from there, it's only a short step to the state podding hutches of Polly Toynbee's dreams.

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack.

News of her death was confirmed by a military spokesman and members of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

Ms Bhutto had just addressed a pre-election rally in the town of Rawalpindi when the attack occurred.

At least 15 other people are reported killed in the attack and several more were injured. Ms Bhutto had twice been the country's prime minister.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens next but, given the popular support that she appears to have garnered in the last few months, I predict a riot. Or several, in fact.

All eyes on Pakistan, then...

UPDATE: that platitudinous cretin, Batshit Miliband, has been voicing his utterly unoriginal thoughts on the matter—fucking hell, I can't believe that this slimy little shit represents us to other countries: he's an embarrassment.

The killing of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was a "senseless attack", UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said.

Well, it obviously made sense to someone, David, and that's why they killed her. She wasn't randomly picked, you know: she was a prominent politician and a lot of people didn't like her very much. Whilst it might be an appalling thing to do, I suspect that her assassination was very far from being "senseless".

"This is a time for restraint but also unity.

You really are a tedious little man, aren't you?

All those committed to a stable future for Pakistan will condemn without qualification all violence perpetrated against innocent people.

Will they? I'm sure that, say, Muslim extremists want a stable Pakistan—a stable Islamist Pakistan—but I am sure that they wouldn't condemn violent methods. In fact, they seem more than happy to use them throughout the world.

"In targeting Benazir Bhutto extremist groups have in their sights all those committed to democratic processes in Pakistan. They cannot and must not succeed.

Worried that people in Britain might get a few ideas, eh, Dave?

"The large Pakistani community in the United Kingdom will be gravely concerned about these latest developments.

I'm sure that they will be. Although, I would also be interested to know how many of them consider themselves more British than Pakistani.

Let me reassure them that the UK government will continue to work with all those who want to build a peaceful and democratic Pakistan."

Like... um... President "Came to power through a military coup and recently suspended the Constitution and locked up his political opponents" Musharraf? Does Batshit believe a word that he's saying?—because I don't.

The development will overshadow attempts by Mr Brown to regain the political initiative in the New Year after a disastrous last quarter of 2007.

I know. Aaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha!

Although why Peter Watt should be the only one facing charges, I don't know; it seems rather unfair that the party Treasurer—Jack Dromey, a.k.a. Mr Harriet Harman—is not also liable. I would love to have seen that tableau: a terrified Dromey being draggged away to chokey by two burly policeman, whilst darling Harriet reaches out futilely to her dear heart, the tears pouring down her normally self-satisfied, priggish, squirrel's bumhole of a face.

Although it would be equally satisfying to see that vignette in reverse, with Harriet "feeding of the £5,000" Harman dragged off to prison whilst her weeping husband curses, wails, gnashes his teeth, and rends his clothes.

Still, one can't have everything, eh? As it is, it looks as though the Gobblin' King isn't going to have a merry New Year and that can only be to the good! Your humble Devil is heartily anticipating a year of humiliation for the monocular bastard and, hell, I'm excited about it!

Dan Hannan recalls that, at the time of the tsunami, MEPs were all outbidding each other to send money in aid. However, it was our money that they wanted to spend: millions and millions of pounds of it. No surprises there.

And so it went on, each speaker attracting warm applause from Euro-MPs who felt warm about the fact that they were applauding. Then an Italian Christian Democrat, a gently mannered Catholic, rose with a suggestion. Why didn’t we make a personal gesture? Why didn’t each colleague contribute a single day’s attendance allowance to the relief fund?

Immediately the warmth drained from the room. Those who had been hoarsely cheering the allocation of squillions of their constituents’ money were stony at the thought of chipping in €290 of their own. (Long-standing readers of this blog will be aware that, on top of their salaries and various other perks, MEPs get paid for turning up and signing the attendance register.) The poor Italian sat down to one of the most hostile silences I can remember, and the idea was immediately dropped.

Contemplate that scene, my friends, and you will descry an elemental truth of politics—indeed, of humanity. People treat their own resources differently from other people’s. There are, as Milton Friedman observed, two kinds of money in the world: your money and my money. And, in Brussels, it’s all your money.

Milton and Rose Friedman described the four ways in which people spend money: in his book, All The Trouble in The World, P J O'Rourke summarised the theory.

You spend your own money buying something for yourself—you therefore try to get the best possible product for the best possible price.

You spend someone else's money buying something for yourself—you still try to get the best possible product, but you are not so concerned about the price.

You spend your own money buying something for someone else—you are deeply concerned about the price, but you are not nearly so worried about the quality of the product.

You spend someone else's money buying something for someone else—in which case, who gives a shit?

As we proceed ever closer to the new year, this is very much worth noting and remembering; for one should always recall that it is not simply in Brussels in which everything that they are spending is our money: this holds true for Westminster too.

And the bastards in power are currently spending about £600 billion of our money every year and, as Friedman so rightly pointed out, they couldn't give a shit whether they are getting value for money: in the end, they can always extort more from us.

We must not let them, for that money represents the fruit of our labour; and—whilst they are allowed to fritter away so easily what we have had to work so hard to earn—we are mere slaves, working hard so that these politico bastards may take our pay and piss it up the fucking wall.

Master Rouse has tagged me with... well, it's not really a meme as such, but it is to express one's themes for 2008. Mike has chosen "Health and Wealth", two aims that I am sure that most people would choose.

However, you will never find me in a fucking gym, so it is wealth that concerns me most, and so that will—hopefully—be the theme for 2008. One can but try anyway!

I was going to go for Health and espouse the idea that, just possibly, I should drink rather less than I have this year, but then I discovered that it's just not necessary!

A cheap and readily available drug could reverse severe liver disease, even in patients who find it impossible to give up booze, research suggests.

Sulfasalazine is currently used to treat arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.

But a University of Newcastle team has found that it can also reverse the scarring associated with cirrhosis of the liver.

Your humble Devil survived Christmas with the paternal parental unit and is now happy to be ensconced once more in the Hell Pit. Christmas dinner was excellent and reminded me of this Samizdata post about multi-birds.

Alec Muffet, redoubtable trencherman that he is despite his dainty frame, pointed me at this splendiferous expression of the manifest superiority of western civilisation:

Multi-bird roasts, where different types of bird are stuffed inside a larger one, have become the thing to carve this year - and the more birds involved the better. One of the top-sellers is the Waitrose four-bird roast: guinea fowl, duck and turkey breast stuffed inside a goose.

For it was this delicacy that we indulged in for our Christmas roast, and thoroughly delicious it was too; why roast only one lovely, tasty bird when you can have four, eh? But it seems that not everybody agrees.

However after reading the comments attached to this Daily Mail article decrying the practice, I could see my enthusiasm was not shared by all. The best comment and a real contender for the Samizdata Pig's Head on a Spike Award for Thigh Slapping Hilarity was:

See, it's because of madness like this that the terrorists hate us—Marcus, Northampton, UK

No, Marcus, it's because of priggish, finger-wagging, fun-destroying cunts like you that these terrorists think that they can win, you destroyer of joy. Go fuck yourself...

The man is either a sage-like wag of the very highest order or a deranged Imam in need of an extended holiday in a certain part of Cuba... and an honourable mention also goes out for:

These graceful animals were alive and living a short while ago. Go veggie this Cristmas and let more of gods creatures experience what you do ...Life—James Mills, Nottingham

For fuck's sake, if you are going to take no joy in life, what the hell are you living for? But let us all hope that James Mills enjoyed his mung bean roast, the miserable bastard.

Anyway, the four birds in one were absolutely lovely and, I must say, your humble Devil felt decadent in the extreme and that, my friends, is the spirit of Christmas. It's not excess, or crass commercialism, or drunkenness: Christmas (and, before that, Saturnalia) is about decadent indulgence. And good port.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Ladies and gentlemen, in the last few days it was announced that the number of Catholics in this country had outstripped those professing to be of the Church of England. Given that the C of E id the nominal offcicial church of this country, this is a particularly poor achievement and one might have thought that the Archcuntbishop of Canterbury might possibly want to spend his Christmas sermon on some aspect of faith, or Christianity, or of the church in general.

But you would be heartily mistaken, because Dr Rowan "The World's Most Punchable Welshman" Williams has decided to concentrate on the oh-so-fashionable and yet oh-so-dodgy aspect of the environment.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that human greed is threatening the environmental balance of the Earth.

In his Christmas sermon, Dr Rowan Williams called on Christians to do more to protect the environment.

The planet should not be used to "serve humanity's selfishness", he told worshippers at Canterbury Cathedral.

It's nice to see that Rown Williams feels that his rapidly dwindling church needs no message of faith or encouragement on a religious footing. Williams really is a fucking twat of the first order...

Dr Williams said humanity needed to protect the world that God had created.

"The whole point of creation is that there should be persons... capable of intimacy with God, not so that God can gain something but so that these created beings may live in joy," he said.

"And God's way of making sure that this joy is fully available is to join humanity on Earth so that human beings may recognise what they are and what they are for."

The leader of the Anglican Church said this meant people should treat both others and nature with reverence.

Ah, yes, Dr Williams is a true socialist, is he not? How convenient that Dr Williams should be able to interpret god's word and thus tell us all how people should live their lives; I look forward to living my life with Dr Rowan's piss-por boilerplate socialism on the tip of my tongue, always.

Monday, December 24, 2007

As I was wandering around central London today, I happened to... ahem... chance upon the Apple Store in Regents Street, so I wandered in. But, I did wander in with a specific purpose: I wanted to try out the new Apple ultra-slim keyboard.

I had heard mixed reports of about this beautiful-looking thing—some people hated it and others loved it—and I wanted to see what it felt like.

The keyboard looks, essentially, like a flat sheet of aluminium and feels surprisingly solid; further it has flat buttons, very much like one of Apple's MacBook laptops. However, there is one important difference: even though it may look it, the keyboard is not completely flat. It does in fact have a slight camber, but it is so configured that the peak is in the middle of the keyboard; in other words, where Apple's previous keyboards have been slightly concave in profile, this one is convex.

So how did it feel? Wonderful, in fact. I have never typed so naturally. The convex camber means that my hands rest entirely, curving over the keys. I found myself, in the Apple Store, typing nonsense into a text document faster than I think I have ever typed before.

So, of course, I bought one (a mere £25—bargain!).

The full set of media keys one the keyboard are also a boon, especially those that control iTunes: now I have total control over my music, even when iTunes is in the Dock, without having to switch applications. For someone who nearly always works with music going, this is very useful.

The unusual shape probably won't suit everyone but for me it's an absolute revelation. So, an early Christmas present to myself, to make up for the couple of grey hairs I found this morning. If I didn't know the portrait was safely locked in the attic, I'd swear I was ageing...